Naked Jane (1995) was a first effort from writer, director, editor Linda Kandel that was first screened at Sundance. It is decidedly an art film, but manages to be intriguing. It is basically the story of a dysfunctional woman (Renee Stahl) who types for a living, writes in her spare time, and is trying o get over the death of her father, and a long separation from her model boyfriend. Her life suddenly gets more interesting when she meets another man.

She half narrates the story, and it is all about knowing what is going on in her head. This is a very unique view of a woman in transition, and Kandel obviously knew her character very well. Stahl, in her first credited role, managed to become a sympathetic character, and showed all of her body parts along the way. Barbara Planck, as a stripper, also turned in a 3 B performance. Peta Wilson also appeared in a small role early in her career.

A very few IMDb readers have this at 8.1 of 10, which only shows that mainstream viewers have stayed away so far. Some of the photography is lovely, and I enjoyed the intimate portrait of this woman. It was also a plus that you had to figure it out as you went along, rather than being spoon fed the plot points. This is a C+ as an art house film, but many of you will want to skip it.

The Soft Kill (1994):

I wrote of this film yesterday. Mediocre movie, maybe worse than mediocre, but there are two highlights worth seeing: (1) Michael Harris's never-seen sex scene with the mysterious Judith Ziehn (2) Carrie-Anne Moss's first screen nudity.

Here are some film clips of those two scenes in convenient .zipped .wmv format.

• Carrie-Anne Moss. What a shame that Carrie-Anne never showed her incredible breasts straight on in good light. At the 1994 stage in her life, they were full and round and just magnificent. I suppose it is too late now. What a loss!

• Judith Ziehn and Michael Harris. Some crazy, frenetic softcore action which had no place in the film at all, and which nobody seems to have seen until now. Harris's dick even makes some guest appearances as the two of them act out the Kama Sutra in a scene eerily similar to the puppet sex scene in Team America.

Paradise (1982):

Phoebe Cates and Willie Aames play two young teens who are on a caravan between Baghdad and Damascus in the early 19th century. The caravan is attacked by marauders, and the two teens end up as the only survivors. Their escape does not please the Evil Arab Ransacking Dude, because he is a white slaver, and the main reason he attacked the caravan was to get Phoebe Cates in the first place. Of course, before he sells her, he plans to  ... well, you know.

The two teens miraculously live through their solo trek in the desert, and they eventually settle down and build magnificent living quarters out of palm fronds and dates. Evil Arab Ransacking Dude pursues them, and captures Cates, but Aames rescues her, and they run off to create an even more impressive camp out of sand and coconuts. This time they settle on the coast of the Mediterranean, which is no simple matter when one considers the precise route from Baghdad to Damascus. They learn about sex, they adopt a family of chimps, they encounter the Evil Arab Ransacking Dude again, and ...

Oh, who am I kidding? There is really only one reason for this film to exist - Phoebe Cates gets naked constantly. She showers naked under several different waterfalls, walks naked around their deluxe hut, swims naked near colorful coral reefs, bathes naked in lagoons, wades naked in the Mediterranean, has sex with Willie Aames ...

I guess some of you may also enjoy looking at Willie Aames naked. I know when I used to watch Aames and Van Patten in Eight is Enough, I'd think to myself, I gotta see willie and dick, if you catch my drift, but that was a deeply troubled time in my life. Strangely enough, my dream has been deferred once more, since Willie's willie has been digitally blurred in every scene on the Asian DVD. The IMDb says that this was simply done in the DVD mastering process.

Phoebe Cates certainly made an interesting, unique contribution to cinema nudity. Basically, she spent the entire year of 1982 naked (this film plus Fast Times at Ridgemont High), and then kept her clothes on for the rest of her career, which was only about a dozen years. Then she retired to raise a family, and hasn't really been seen on screen with or without clothing for a decade. So her entire collection of nude scenes was packed into a single year. But what a year! It is possible to argue that her nudity in this film is the all-time summit of celebrity nudity in film. She was 19 years old and as cute as a button, she looked even younger and sufficiently virginal to fulfill any man's schoolgirl fantasies (no wonder this film went to DVD in Japan before any other country!), her body was flawless and natural, and there was no tease. She showed everything again and again.

There is one other positive feature of this film: the locations and cinematography are interesting. The director found some beautiful locations in the desert, and the cinematographer did a great job on photographing them, as he did on photographing Phoebe.

The rest of the film? Well, the story is ridiculous and maudlin, and their co-stars are a family of chimps. The acting is terrible. The Arab guys are one-dimensional villains. Phoebe herself is simply not that good an actress, but she seems like Siobhan McKenna compared to Willie Aames. Come to think of it, the chimps seemed like the Royal Shakespeare Company compared to Willie Aames. I notice that the distinguished Lord Aames basically called it a career in 1986 or 87, except for a couple of Eight is Enough Reunion shows, and has been living in Portland.

In 1999, he tried a bit of a showbiz comeback by writing and directing and starring in Bible Man, "a Christian video series designed for children ages 3-9," who are presumably too young to criticize his acting. That series of videos then expanded into a Bibleman road show, which Aames starred in until 2003, when he announced that he would be stepping down from the part of Bibleman in the touring production in order to spend more time with his family. Presumably to enjoy his kids while they are still too young to realize he sucks.

• Phoebe Cates (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

Other Crap:

• What's next for Jon Stewart?
• Humorist Will Durst's Year 2004 Archives
• Kill Bill director Quentin Tarantino has announced his next project will be a kung-fu film shot entirely in Mandarin. He will also shoot a second version of the film, dubbed with a deliberately out-of-synch English soundtrack.
• The Ashlee Simpson Show
• Borowitz: NADER RIPS OSAMA FOR FAILING TO MENTION HIM. Demands Inclusion in Next Terror Tape.
• WTF??? Osama bin Laden to join other celebrities with his own fragrance. Astoundingly, this is not a satire. "I expect people out of curiosity will try it, and they will find the smell out of this world," said the Swiss-Saudi sibling of Al Qaeda's founder.
• If you enjoyed Sienna Miller in Alfie, you'll find plenty more to enjoy in the 2003 Pirelli calendar, which features her thrice. Come to think of it, the other Pirelli pictures on this page ain't too shabby either!
• The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll - The 250 Best Films of the 20th Century. I was surprised to see Biodome and Chairman of the Board finish so high, but I guess the Village Voice knows its stuff.
• Ralph Nader says Charles Manson and Carrot Top would make better presidents than Bush! Literally, Good Time Ralphie said, "anybody would be a better president than Bush." When did Nader turn into a wild-eyed lunatic? He didn't say "anybody on the ballot", he said "anybody." That blanket assessment would, of course, encompass such frightening prospects as Manson, Osama bin Laden, Carrot Top, Jerry Falwell, Ben Affleck, me, and Dennis Kucinich.
  • Well, I guess Nader hasn't completely lost his mind, so he probably meant to exclude Kucinich.
• What if the whole world could vote in the U.S. presidential election? I love the results in France. Kerry 95%, Bush 4%. And I suppose President Bush's 4% was probably made by Republican operatives making bogus votes! Man, they love that guy in France!
• For the first time, golfer Colin Montgomerie is dating a woman with bigger boobs that his own. Well, maybe not bigger, but at least in the same ballpark.
• Beyonce has a slight wardrobe malfunction.
• Universal Pictures is moving up the release of Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason one week, to Nov. 12, the studio announced Monday. Actually, the expected 2500 screen wide release on Nov 19 stays the same, but they added a 500 screen preview release on the 12th.
• A new clip from After the Sunset. (Caper flick with an A-list cast: Pierce Brosnan, Woody Harrelson, Salma Hayek, Don Cheadle)  
• NEW! The trailer from MR. AND MRS. SMITH (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie)
• The Daily Show covers Arafat dying and the Red Sox - as a single story.
• The Smoking Gun finds that Bonds and other stars were fingered in a steroid probe: "Key figures in the BALCO steroid case last year fingered Barry Bonds and other athletes as having received illegal performance-enhancing drugs from the California company, according to the Internal Revenue Service investigative reports."
• 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Gets Election-Eve Airing on Satellite PPV.
• Completely bizarre - Richard Simmons on Who's Line is it Anyway
• Playtone partners Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman have bought Jeanne DuPrau's young adult sci-fi bestseller 'The City of Ember'
• What's Liam Neeson up to lately?: "On November 12, Kinsey, the new biodrama from Gods and Monsters director Bill Condon will be the first chance for many moviegoers to learn about the life and work of sex expert Alfred Kinsey (Neeson), whose research into human sexual behavior in the 40's and 50's led to a new understanding of sexuality in the United States"
• The Daily Show looks at vote fraud.
• Girl with rare disease has no ability to feel pain. If ever anyone was born to be a Cubs fan ...
• Kerry wins in a landslide. Alexandra Kerry, that is, who was chosen as the sexiest political daughter. I didn't see a lot of votes for Cheney's daughter.
• Electoral-Vote.com is showing Kerry at his all-time high point with a 298-231 lead. There are some problems with this, however. Today's report at www.gallup.com is showing Bush with a commanding lead in Wisconsin, for example, based on a Sunday Gallup poll, but this map is showing Kerry with a seven point lead there, based on a Sunday Zogby poll. In other words - there ain't no chickens hatched, so put your abacus back in the drawer. It's goin' down to the wire.
  • This link also has an excellent summary of all the major polls of the popular vote. Ten different polls, all showing essentially the same thing - a dead heat. There is also a summary of all the major polls in the 2000 election, so you can see who did the best job.
• Film clip from Team America - Kim Jong Il sings "I'm so ronery."
• Hugh Jackman is calling on James Bond casting directors to make him the new 007. The X-Men star is so obsessed with playing the spy, he admitted to starting the rumour he was in negotiations with producers!
• Liz Hurley to marry in India?
• Four free short videos from Playboy Plus!
• Playmate Gallery - Irina Voronina, Jan 2001 - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Gallup's Final Pre-Election Poll Shows Presidential Race to Be Dead Heat, 49-49.
• TED KENNEDY GIVES FREE DRIVING LESSONS TO POOR TEENS!
  . He was told that some of the girl's moms might object, but he figured he'd cross that bridge when he comes to it.
• Latino Review has tons of new stills from Nic Cage's National Treasure, as well as a vast amount of featurette material.
• 2005 MGM preview
• The greatest of all movie critics, The Filthy Critic, gives his analysis of Saw.
• U.S. CAPTURES CAT STEVENS. Long-awaited "October Surprise".
  • After searching for Mr. Stevens in the mountainous region between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the president said, the U.S. nabbed the former pop singer at a Starbucks in London, England, just moments after he ordered a vente latte with skim milk.
  • “We’re doing so well now, we may not even have to prevent the other side from voting,” Bush strategist Karl Rove said.

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

NOTE: because of a unique combination of circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a picture. When you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

I know this is not especially convenient, but it allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips altogether.

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

Words, pictures, and vids from ICMS
 

• Alice Krige aka "The Borg Queen". Here she is topless (and looking pretty darn good nekkid at age 43!) in a scene from "Habitat" (1997).

• "Dead Like Me" co-star Laura Harris also looking terrific topless in scenes from "Habitat".

• One more of Laura Harris. This time we see her baring breasts and bum in a very dark nude scene from the 1998 Robert Rodriguez movie "The Faculty".

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

Cleaning up a few loose ends:

Ashley St. Jon and a bunch of unknowns (cindy, shelley, the bachelorette and the policewoman) in Stag Party.

• Ashley St. Jon
• Cindy
• Shelley
• the bachelorette
• the policewoman

Stills of Brinke Stevens, Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer in the DVD extas of Nightmare Sisters.

• Brinke Stevens
• Linnea Quigley (1, 2, 3)
• Michelle Bauer (1, 2)

A whole mess more of Victoria Zdrok in Satin Smoke and a few of Shannon Leahy.

• Victoria Zdrok (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
• Shannon Leahy (1, 2, 3, 4)

And last up is a correction of an error in judgement: I ALWAYS check The Bare Facts for movies I cap, but when I capped the clips of Test Tube Teens From the Year 2000 I just plain forgot. So once again, here are two collages of nekkid shower babes...this time labeled correctly.

• Laurel Wiley and Robin Joi Brown
• Maria Elisa and Julie R. Sell

HEFMATE FIRED FOR SLEEPING WITH CLINTON
Quaking With Indignation - The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that former Miss Arkansas and Hef-mag centerfold Myra Belle Miller is suing the West Chester Meeting of Friends, a Quaker organization for which she worked as director of fundraising and PR. She claims she was subjected to sexual harassment and religious discrimination after Miller admitted in 1992 to having once had a three-month affair with Bill Clinton. She says she was fired after complaining to the EEOC.